Portfolio Index

Introduction

I am Joseph Lollback, and this is an online portfolio of my computer games industry related work. I have been passionate and driven when it comes to creating content for computer games - immersive game environments and engaging stories in particular - for many years. I don't think I'm truly happy unless I'm currently working on a game-development related project.

To give a quick summary of my experience and qualifications (see my resume for more detail), I have nearly two years' professional experience in the games industry as a Level Designer, with one published game behind me so far. Prior to that, I have been creating content for a wide range of computer games in my spare time for over ten years; releasing a number of successful and popular mods to the public.

I have worked on mod projects for Quake 2, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Unreal-engine games including Unreal, Deus Ex, Unreal 2, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Unreal Tournament 3 - and I worked professionally on the innovative multiplayer First Person Shooter 'Kwari'.

My career objective is to continue on in the games industry, applying and improving my level design, 3D art and writing skills across a range of high quality titles.

This portfolio contains videos, screenshots, download links, design documents and design post-mortems for my recent projects. To navigate the site, make a selection from the site menu to the left - or you can begin from the short summaries below. (The text in each of these project summaries is also included in the main page for the respective project, so you don't need to return to this index page if you don't want to).

If you would like to request a copy of my resume, I can be contacted via the 'contact Joseph' button above. Thank you for your time.

Weapon Mod Kits (WMK) for Fallout 3 is probably the most popular mod I have ever released for any game. Within 24 hours of release it ranked as the 3rd highest-rated Fallout 3 mod available on Fallout 3 Nexus - which I understand is the most popular Fallout 3 mod-indexing site on the Internet. (See the Fallout 3 Nexus Top 50 - later to be Top 100 - list here.) One week later, WMK reached the number one spot: the highest-rated mod available on Fallout 3 Nexus. (At the time of writing the top few spots are volatile, but WMK remains 'neck and neck' close to number one, if not at number one outright).

WMK also caught the attention of Fallout 3's developers at Bethesda Softworks, as reported on their Bethesda Blog website. But what is Weapon Mod Kits all about? [read more]

'Eternal Devotion' is a short Neverwinter Nights module I made as part of my application for a job as a Writer at BioWare - and as such has a focus on dialogue rather than combat, puzzles, exploration, etc. [read more]

Hoarfrost Castle is a popular mod I made for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and it is the project I am most proud of out of all my mod-work. I worked on it in my spare time while working full-time, and it took around six months to make, overall (including beta testing).

Hoarfrost Castle is a story-based (or 'quest') mod that revolves around a series of quests the player undertakes to gain ownership of - and restore full working order to - the titular castle for their character. Each quest completed unlocks another feature of the castle that the player can make use of, and the whole thing is tied together by an over-arcing story that deals with the castle's troubled and mysterious history.

With Hoarfrost Castle I attempted to bring together quality level design, dramatic and pretty visuals, enjoyable gameplay, engaging story-telling and characters, and a seamless integration with Oblivion's existing game world, lore and gameplay style. I believe my attempt was very successful, and the more than ten thousand people (and rising) who have downloaded Hoarfrost Castle seem to agree!

At the time of writing, Hoarfrost Castle is in the Top 100 Oblivion mods list on TESNexus, which I understand is the most popular Oblivion mod-indexing site on the Internet. There are currently around fourteen thousand mods listed on this site, so reaching the top 100 is no mean feat! [read more]

The multiplayer First Person Shooter 'Kwari' is the published game I worked on while at Micro Forte: my first game in the industry. The exchange of real money between players was incorporated into many of the game's systems from the ground up, in a way that had not been attempted before. This had an enormous influence on virtually every aspect of the game's design - including the level design. The layout, item placement and flow of each level were influenced by the special requirements the real money elements created. It was a very interesting project to work on. [read more]

DM-Courtyard is an Unreal Tournament 3 deathmatch level I created to get some practice using the current-generation version of UnrealEd (I had previous experience with the versions of UnrealEd accompanying Unreal, Deus Ex, Unreal 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004). The UT3 version of UnrealEd has a surprising number of new and changed features: much more than I remember seeing when going from UnrealEd 1 to UnrealEd 2, for example. It was a pleasure learning these new features: they're very useful additions. [read more]

I made the HL2DM map 'dm_promontory' as part of my application for the Level Designer position at Micro Forte (that I successfully gained). The map was requested by the guys there to demonstrate my multiplayer level design skills, and I maintained regular correspondence with them while I worked on the map; keeping them updated on its progress. Once the map was complete, I released it on the Internet for other people to play. [read more]

Unlike most of the other things detailed here in my portfolio, this is not a mod (or professional content) for a computer game - although that might depend on how broadly one defines "mod". It is game related, however. I'm including it here mainly as another demonstration of my capability for extreme dedication to a project.

Frost in Morrowind is a piece of fan fiction (set in the world created by The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind) that I wrote over the course of almost exactly one year. It is extremely dorky, I know; but yet... it exists. I created a character and played through a large part of Morrowind and its expansions, with the events that took place - and a personal story I had in mind for this character - being told in the form of serial fiction that I released online, using Blogger as a vehicle. [read more]

This mod for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is... maybe a little strange, if you're not a hardcore, mod-installing, maniacal Oblivion fan. It makes your character "smell bad" if he/she doesn't bathe once a day, and adds to the game (among other things) soap, copper bathtubs and the ability to bathe in bodies of water...

Yeah, I know; sort of ridiculous... but hear me out.

The mod came about because the idea for it (and how I could do it using the scripting language in Oblivion) just popped into my head one day, it would only be a fairly short project, and it would provide me the practice I wanted in a few areas I was interested in (modding Oblivion in general, scripting, more 3d modelling and texturing...). [read more]

Fantasy Demo is what BigWorld Technology uses to demonstrate their MMO middleware package to prospective licensees: a tech demo with a medieval fantasy setting and RPG overtones. I and some of the other level designers at Micro Forte were drafted into creating some art assets for Fantasy Demo while upcoming projects were in pre-production. (As a side note, we used a modified version of the BigWorld engine for Kwari.) [read more]